


A Certain Kind of Sense

by leslielol



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9885692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol
Summary: Carisi's evening runs the gamut: he gets a word of warning, an invitation, and a word of praise.Post-episode 18.11, Great Expectations.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oop so I wrote this after last week’s episode, Great Expectations. A little bare and not much to my liking, but I enjoyed the idea of it, anyway.

Although nothing about Manhattan’s SVU precinct is particularly welcoming--the nonstop activity of its officers suggests an awful kind of productivity--there is, at least, a constant smell of freshly brewed coffee. Even in these evening hours, that familiar scent is some distant strain of comforting. 

After rounding the entrance--he’s as familiar a face here as any detective--and stepping through the bullpen, Barba isn’t especially surprised or relieved to find the person he’s looking for. The man likes to keep himself busy, as simultaneous law school and police work would suggest. Pulling overtime is probably among the _kinder_ things he does for himself and his sleep schedule. 

Carisi is all loosened shirt sleeves and pinched vest. 

Barba doesn’t wonder idly after when Carisi started wearing them--he’d clocked the date and time. It was hardly difficult to spy the change; the man’s fashion idols seemed to run a strange and broad rotation: 1980’s TV beat cops, morticians, and one ADA Rafael Barba. 

He feels his own influence in the updated look--definitely not intended, but readily evident. He still pretends not to notice, which is either a kindness or is driving the younger man absolutely up the wall.

Barba is fine with either.

Barba skirts along the side of the man’s desk, and drops his briefcase atop a spread of files and long-finished reports. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. 

“I heard you did my job for me the other day.”

“Huh?” Carisi’s head snaps up from where he sits hunched, squinting at his computer screen to make sense of a slew of text message screenshots for their latest case. 

Barba is a welcome--if unexpected--distraction, and Carisi leans back, and affords the man his attention. 

Except--it’s a matter Carisi would rather not return to, so he sinks slightly back to form, and glances at his computer screen, as if suddenly the answers will align themselves and appear for him, and Carisi runs the risk of missing their reveal.

“Oh, the Jack Wilson case.” He frowns, then, and considers what he could have done to bring Barba here to express his ire in person. 

“Please don’t tell me you _wanted_ to take that to court.”

“Kyle Turner’s still a sex offender. And guilty of manslaughter.” Barba says these things plainly, though the reality, he knows, would be far harder to face in court. There would be round, red, crying childrens’ faces. Stoic parents, now without their own child, and wondering what that makes them. A woman coming to terms with her lot in life--how she’s suffered, and allowed her children to suffer, and for all of it, who still can’t hate anyone but herself. 

No, Barba doesn't want to take that mess to court and exact justice as best he could. 

And because of Carisi’s efforts, he won’t have to.

The detective has spared a lot of lives, recently.

Supposing he should finish his thought, lest Carisi assume the facts stood as they did, and Barba had no consideration for the ordeal, otherwise, he added: “But you did the right thing.”

It earns him a smile, though Barba supposes the notion that he’s _earned_ anything is an overstatement. Carisi seems the type to give those out like candy.

“That means a lot coming from you, Counselor.” The wide smile clipped itself off into something focused, a tight line that held fast under searching eyes. “Hey, did you need something? It’s like pulling teeth getting you down here. Or else you’re bitching about the cost of your Uber for the first twenty minutes.”

“I use Lyft, now,” Barba sniffs indignantly, but the point still stands and they both know it. Carisi is back to smiling easily at Barba, pleased for his company no matter the reason. And to not hear a terrible one right off the bat is a welcome change.

But the relief Carisi feels is short-lived. Barba collects his briefcase again and his hand grips the handle too tightly--a tell, though Carisi doesn’t say so.

“Can we talk in private?” Barba asks, but before a response is given, he’s already making his way past Carisi and towards the interrogation rooms. Carisi quickly follows. They step into the room itself, because the viewing areas are widely open for passersby. 

“What’s up?” 

“You didn’t attend Kyle’s court hearing, did you?”

It’s neither an accusation or an idle curiosity--there is substance folded in, but Carisi cannot discern its purpose.

“Um. No.”

Carisi wonders if the judge did not take pity on the boy, if all their efforts to uncover the father’s overpowering influence went unappreciated.

The look on his face must say it all-- _is he going to be tried as an adult?_ \--because Barba waves a hand, chasing those thoughts out of Carisi’s mind.

“Relax,” he says, but the order is intrinsically wrong, and Barba battles the misstep off his own features, lest it settle there as pity. 

He finally sets upon the point he came to make.

“After Kyle stated that his father instructed him to do what he did, Judge Martinez asked what compelled him to make that statement.” Barba’s mouth twists into a near-invisible line, and Carisi cannot begin to imagine Barba not having anything to say, much less the capacity to say it. 

“He shared that a detective had told him about missing his shot once, and for his little brother’s sake, Kyle would not make the same mistake.” 

That’s it. 

Barba waits for the realization to land, for Carisi to connect deed with outcome. He expects dramatics--a wince, maybe, or for shame to unfold across Carisi’s face, ashen and drawn.

All he gets is a quiet, “Oh.”

Barba isn’t entirely certain Carisi sees his meaning, or if he’s playing cool. 

He doesn’t think the latter would immediately occur to the man, so he pushes onward, saying: “I just thought you should know. People are aware. Of the particulars.” 

Barba finds even _he_ doesn’t want to echo the gossip--for fear of learning it was unfounded, or else a ten-year-old sanitized its telling and did not come close to Carisi’s reality. 

Or else he thinks perhaps Carisi won’t see the reason in Barba’s warning--tardy as it is, and chasing nothing.

To Barba, it makes every kind of sense.

“It got back to _me,_ anyway, from the far reaches of family court.”

“Okay,” Carisi says, and even after an explanation, he doesn’t know how to feel. It’s a state of being he feels stuck in, even a day later. It’s unknown territory, this: speaking of the bullying and its unintended outcomes for the first time in his life since he broke down--years after the fact--and admitted the whole ordeal to a priest through a flood of tears. 

Now, given the prospect of wider knowledge, Carisi feels strangely numb to it. He looks at Barba, sort of listless.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Was it true?” Barba asks. He’s not one to seek out morbid personal tales on a whim, so Carisi rightly figures the man has his doubts, and he doesn’t want to have been had by a clever lie drawn along a tangled fishing line of gossip.

Barba narrows his eyes and speaks before Carisi does: “It was,” he determines. “You have a scar, just above your eyebrow. Another at your hairline.”

Surprised, Carisi takes a mental step back and plays dumb. “That could be from anything.”

Barba never once takes his eyes off the detective’s face.

“That’s certainly a convenient lie we tell ourselves, isn’t it?”

Carisi doesn’t think the answer is actually _yes,_ so again he says nothing.

Barba's phone buzzes with the arrival of an email, and Carisi knows this because there's a _look_ of unmitigated dread he gets nowadays when he receives a text, and another two to choose from after he reads it. 

Relief or nothing. The man's face goes completely blank when he receives word of intent against his life. 

Carisi thinks it has to be the strangest thing he's ever seen, outside of some choice staged crime scenes from his days in Homicide. 

Awkwardly, Carisi asks into the aftermath, curious now what Barba expects him to do with this information. 

“Is it--I dunno. Weird?”

“Only for you, I’d imagine,” Barba says, his eyes still locked on his phone. They lift briefly, find Carisi's, then drop again. His tone becomes pointedly mild when he says: “It’s late. Your shift about up? I could go for a drink.”

Carisi is of half a mind to look uselessly into the two-way mirrored glass of the interrogation room, pleading with any possible passerby for an answer to Barba's question.

He is at first thrilled, but the rising joy at the very prospect of spending for time with the man he so admires is quickly cut down to size. Carisi remembers the moments of conversation that led them here, and adds them to the score. 

His chances sink well into the red. 

“No,” he says quietly. There's no hiding the fact that he doesn't _want_ to say no, quietly or otherwise. It very nearly emerges as a question on his part, but he’s spared _that_ indignity, at least. “You don’t have to--uh. You don’t have to do that.”

Barba pretends to smirk at whatever is on his phone’s screen. Carisi knows it's for him.

“How flattering that you think I would bother.” 

“Yeah, because you’ve asked me to go get a drink, like, ever.” 

The comeback is a little sharp where Carisi feels too dull--still--for this conversation. He couldn't say a word of it to Rollins after the fact, and he was no better a day out. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but even saying so gives the matter more substance than is fair. 

It’s been years, and Carisi can live with the guilt. What he can’t do-- _won’t do_ \--is announce the shame.

“Listen. I get what it is and I get what it’s not.” Carisi thinks he’s about to get away with dismissing Barba, but when the man meets his gaze and holds it, daring Carisi to try, Carisi falters. 

He speaks to it, but lies: “Kids can be assholes.”

“And kids can develop a complex that leads them to pursue not one but _two_ careers in law enforcement,” Barba returns. “Which is the far more interesting arm of this, let’s admit.” 

The words come to easily for Barba, and that alone frustrates Carisi, who doesn’t want to be seen through, or known, for his inaction. 

Not by Barba, of all people.

“Contrary to whatever Kyle said in court, I don’t actually like my bullies,” Carisi spits. To say he regrets the undisciplined response at once is an understatement. He steels himself and adds, “It’s late, like you said. Good night, counselor.”

He returns to his desk. He glares at his computer screen and does not look up in search of Barba, lest he sees the man lingering or gone.

Carisi doesn’t want to know. 

-

An hour later, when Carisi’s settled in at his apartment, beer in hand, and socked feet on his coffee table, he receives a call from Barba that is-- _somehow_ \--ostensibly worse than the conversation they shared at the precinct.

Barba, who is delightfully tipsy, attempts a slow, warm, and vague apology for his behavior tonight and, per his recollection, “In the past. Few. Years?”

In a word, Carisi is mortified.

That he called Barba a bully and Barba _ruminated_ on that fact over alcohol feels like something Carisi should confess to a priest, or perhaps a _therapist--_

Because.

He’s got to be crazy, telling Barba differently.

“Barba, no--you don’t even rate.”

Barba chuckles at that, something wet and warm that Carisi feels all-too-close in his ear.

“Good to hear,” Barba mumbles. “All the same. I’m sorry.” The words stall somewhere between them, which Carisi thinks puts them around midtown, because those aren’t the words Carisi thinks he needs. Bobby Bianchi himself could say those words, and Carisi wouldn’t feel a lick of difference. 

Over the phone he hears, “Another. Neat. Thank you.”

“You really went to a bar?”

“Yes,” Barba says, either too loudly or with his lips on the phone itself, because the words themselves seem to buzz. “You really did miss out.”

Carisi looks over his own beer and the paused _X-Files_ rerun on TV, and thinks of the night that could have been. 

He thinks about regrets, and wonders how this one will stack up among the rest.

“What bar are you at?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Oh.”

“I’m hungry. What’s good in your neck of the woods?”

-

Carisi suggests a little ramen place around the corner, and by the time Barba meets him there Carisi has procured a table and two beers.

They feast on giant bowls piled with thick noodles, meaty broth, and sprouted greens. The meal breathes up into their air, clouding their senses and leaving them delirious with satisfaction even before the first bite is had.

Carisi’s already changed out of his suit, and wears instead jeans, a t-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie. He strikes quite the contrast to Barba, still dressed in his handsome three piece number, all greys with pops of pink and white, and polka dots in his breast pocket. 

But the jacket comes off, the shirt sleeves get rolled up, and the buttons on his vest come undone in a matter of minutes. He looks at ease.

Carisi is pleased enough to be in Barba’s company in this way, to share a meal with the man, that he doesn’t mind how it came to be.

And--they don’t talk about it. 

They talk around work, sink into movies and books and the sheer _travesty_ that the only Broadway show Carisi has ever seen is _Cats._ _Twice._ When Barba laughs over-long at that, Carisi can’t figure if it’s the several drinks he had earlier, or if he’s deserving of such a response.

It circles the conversation, of course. Like a vulture, its shadow passes down from overhead, darkening over Barba’s face for seconds at a time. The softness in Barba’s eye when he told Carisi of the roundabout way his awful story got around suggests he has similar stories--and scars--to match. Spiral fractures of his own, just glimmers now on any x-ray or MRI scan. But Carisi won’t hear any of them tonight, or perhaps ever. 

It’s well and good enough that he was understood. 

Despite the heavy meal, Carisi arrives at the end of the night feeling lighter. He thinks he needed to make someone laugh, to feel enjoyed, and it’s only taken half a bottle of scotch and a cheap bowl of ramen to get Barba to that point with him. 

Carisi doesn’t think he’s mistaken when he reasons that Barba needed this, too. 

He’s been more dower in recent months, focused on work and not sparing so much as a smart word or a smile for anything else. Carisi doesn’t think it’s all to do with the threats against his life, curiously enough. He thinks--if anything--Barba prefers to have the excuse.

Because otherwise, this work gets to him.

Like it gets to everyone.

This was true: earlier, Barba had very sincerely meant to lead with a thank-you, but the sentiment was lost under his ever-caustic tone. He meant to get it out in one go: _Thank you,_ Carisi, for taking the initiative and guiding the Turner family towards a plea in family court. 

Because it felt like a favor that Barba should be relieved of his duties, while Carisi shouldered the emotional workload.

And still, Barba thinks Carisi--like himself--would appreciate the subterfuge. They could have this much-needed reprieve from their day-to-day lives, but mask it in the guise of a response to something more daunting. 

Except, it surely wasn’t.

Carisi’s pain was old. Bringing it to bear wasn’t an easy thing to do, but he swallowed it back down, after. He chooses to manage, same as he’d always done, by making up as best he could for a lifetime of petty regrets. Every scrap of justice he serves for a victim is penance for his silence. 

It makes a certain kind of sense.

And Barba suspects they both know that whatever pain was felt in childhood or beyond is nothing compared to the guilt drawn along with it. That heavy chain rattles and catches itself on the most mundane of objects, tightening abruptly like a noose, never letting its wearer forget its hold. 

“So,” Barba says, and the word alone is so heavy with intent that Carisi finds himself sitting up straighter, and readying himself for whatever is to come. 

“A friend in the Brooklyn office said they were interested in taking you on. You said no.”

“I said, not right away,” Carisi corrects, but loosens his gaze off of Barba, and lets it pool in his empty bowl. “And I thanked them, for their consideration. Like I wanna thank you, for your belief in me.”

“Belief suggests room for doubt,” Barba says. “I know you can do that job. Why don’t you?”

He sits back from the table and brings his beer with him. He tips it up, drinks slowly. He’s waiting for an explanation.

Carisi is waiting for Barba to laugh, like he’s made a joke. 

But then he _doesn’t,_ and Carisi has to live the rest of his life knowing Barba paid him a compliment. 

“SVU is important to me. The work is important.” Carisi feels Barba’s eyes narrow, like he expects Carisi to bullshit him better than with a few easy truths. “And we’re still short-staffed--”

“That’s Benson’s problem, not yours.” Barba comes forward again, elbows on the table. Carisi thinks he must really be drunk. 

“Really, now.”

Carisi has both hands loosely drawn around his beer. He’s picked a corner of the label clean off. Barba collects the beer out from his grip and places it on the far corner of the table all as if to say triumphantly, _There. No more excuses._

Again, like too-late warnings and the ways and means by which a man can atone, it makes a certain kind of sense.

So Carisi answers him.

“I’m a better person now than before I started there,” he says. “I dunno. I’m not any happier or making any more money or anything--but. I feel like I know myself better. And I think that’s been hard for me for a really long time.” 

Barba seems motionless for a moment, as if the idea doesn’t mandate its own conclusion.

“Yeah, well. How much more is there to know?”

Carisi huffs a laugh, then stretches across the table to collect his stranded beer. He finishes it, then looks Barba in the eye, after, and demands of him an equal showing of honesty.

“You really think I could be an ADA?” he asks, then retracts: “Wait--if you’re drunk, don’t tell me.”

Barba smirks. “Fine. I’ll tell you tomorrow that I _really think_ you could be an ADA.” 

Again, Carisi smiles.

“What about you, Counselor? You got some higher calling?”

“If you want to nominate me for sainthood, I can’t say I’m surprised--”

“No, really.” Carisi can’t help but be curious, and it isn’t often that Barba is pliant. “You gunning to be DA someday? Or a judge?” 

Barba does the wincing he’d suspected of Carisi, and isn’t impressed with himself about that. 

“Unlike yourself, SVU hasn’t done a great deal for my future prospects. Politically, I’d be dead in the water.”

“Yeah,” Carisi says, brightly agreeing to something Barba hasn’t said. “I like having you right where you are, too.” 

It’s another revelation, needless, same as the one Barba imparted. It feels like ready knowledge to the man with which it’s shared.

“Let’s not discuss it,” Barba decides. The notion alone is sobering, and though the path is no clearer for him, he sees the muddied way that much nearer.

Carisi rolls his eyes and lobs a weak objection. “Oh, but when you ask about my career, I gotta answer you?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

They get the bill, and Barba insists on paying. 

Outside is pleasantly warm. They linger in it, bellies full, thoughts heavy. Their breath heaves a fragrant perfume of alcohol and meat broth, and it spills into and overwhelms the night, much like Barba’s invitation had done. It’s deeply satisfying, and Carisi feels compelled to fill it with weightier substance than parting pleasantries. 

He stuffs his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt, and watches Barba fumble with the buttons of his vest, as though he mustn’t be seen in disarray even at this hour. 

“Why’d you tell me what you heard, if you didn’t think I should be embarrassed about it?”

Barba realizes he’s skipped a button, and must start again. 

(He must be distracted, then, or else he’d have never answered.)

“If someone said something to you--”

Carisi pulls a face. Sometimes, the doubt Barba harbors for the actions and intents of others is exhausting. There are no leniencies. 

“Who’s gonna say something about that?”

Barba abandons the effort of his vest, and buttons his jacket over the mess. 

_“I don’t know,_ Carisi, but isn’t the whole point of you never speaking out about it _because_ you didn’t want to hear what people had to say?”

Carisi feels like the tone is meant to chastise him, but he can’t bring himself to feel shunned after such a welcome evening. 

“So, you _can_ cross-examine someone while drunk. I’d always wondered.” 

“I thought I was being prudent,” Barba huffs, and steps out from the curb in search of a taxi. He’s looking up the street when he says, “I’d want to know if there were rumors about me.”

Carisi smiles at that. 

“Yeah, well, there are.”

Barba turns and boasts a slick grin, a wolfish thing that shines in the night as well as any set of headlights. 

“And they’re all true.” 

Carisi ducks his head. He’s sure his enjoyment of that is much too much--possibly even obscene. But he thinks the sweetness that next touches his tongue may be that, too. 

There’s just no stopping it. 

“Thanks, counselor. This was fun.” 

Barba gets his taxi, Carisi thinks, by wanting it, and holding to the search. Like thirst holds a man, he glared down the street until the object was delivered. 

He makes it wait.

Carisi thinks if anyone could stay a dry, shrinking throat to satisfy his mind, it would be Rafael Barba.

Barba looks strangely at Carisi, like he’s got heaps more questions to ask, and wonders how he could possibly be out-maneuvered by the man that stands before him. 

In _sneakers._

His smile softens when he says, “So you’ll believe me next time I ask.”

Carisi wants to laugh; he doesn't believe _this,_ even. He draws a hand over his face, then back through his hair.

"Yeah," he says, disbelief coloring his voice. "Sure, Barba. Next time."


End file.
